Free and Open Source Software

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/51169035

If I install microG, will I have to set up a FOSS version of those services myself, or is it all included? Are there any other basic funcionalities that need to be installed seperately?

I remembered unified nlp from a few years back but when I checked again I noticed it's been 9 years lol so something has probably changed.

TIA

I have been thinking of getting away from the Google ecosystem (while still staying on Adroid) and microg has come onto my radar. I understand that it's a service that tricks other apps into thinking Google Play Services is installed on the phone, thus allowing the app to work on a phone that does not have Play Services.

How do I find out which apps these are, exactly?

From what I have read, not all apps from the Play Store require Play Services, and exactly none of the apps from F-Droid require Play Services... is that correct?

The goal of this question is to figure out if I need LineageOS with microG or just LineageOS. I have moved off Google services already but still use some mainstream apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, and TikTok.

TIA

TL;DR: As Mozilla moves to make Firefox an AI browser, people are looking at other options. Some people are rediscovering Waterfox, a browser that has been around for a decade from independent developer BrowserWorks. In this post, I interview the founder of Waterfox - Alex Kontos, and we discuss Waterfox’s history and look towards its future. We also talk about how Waterfox thinks about AI in the browser.

Hi Beehaw people! New here and hope some of you will take interest in this toolkit and accompanying writeup. :3

Set up a framework to fully man-in-the-middle my own browsers' networking and see what they're up to beyond just looking at their DNS queries and encrypted tcp packets. We force the browser to trust our mitmproxy cacert so we can peek inside cleartext traffic and made it conveniently reproducible and extensible.

It has containers for official Firefox, its Debian version, and some other FF derivatives that market a focus on privacy or security. Might add a few more of those or do the chromium family later - if you read the thing and want more then please let us know what you want to see under the lens in a future update!

Tests were run against a basic protocol for each of them and results are aggregated at the end of the post.

Apart from testing browsers themselves it can be useful for putting extensions under the lens. Making a modern browser properly accept a proxy and trust the mitmproxy cert is a lot more obscure and fiddly than it might seem so hopefully this can be helpful in empowering and pushing other people to peek inside what's actually going on inside their own systems without spending hours or days figuring out what actually makes it tick.

Rewritten cross-post. First Thread @ https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/53845514

Looking for some software to help organize my photos which are currently spread out across lots of random backups. Something that displays the metadata usefully and identifies identical photos would be a big help.

Does NOT need to sync to phone or anything, just need help sorting things into a navigable structure on my machine locally.

Public domain: https://github.com/memdeklaro

I decided to write down a list of complete (no alpha/beta), playable (no proprietary dependencies), FOSS videogames.

I added all the games I could find online + all of the games that came to my memory.

Feel free to have a look to see if there's something you didn't know. And please suggest anything I missed, but please do not suggest pre-release or unfinished games.

Thank you!

EDIT: thank you very much everyone for the comments and for sharing additional awesome lists of FOSS material. Hopefully one day I will have the time to sift through all these games and pick all the non-pre-release ones which don't have any proprietary dependencies.

In the meantime, here's a copy of the links:

• LibreGameWiki - A wiki of free games and related topics started by Han Dao.
• Open Source Game Clones - Open-source or source-available remakes of great old games in one place.
• Open source games (bobeff) - A list of different open-source video games and commercial video games open-source remakes.
• Open Source Games (trillarion) - A list of open source games, game frameworks and game creation tools.

In an attempt to dump all of apple subscriptions my biggest hurdle is the lock-in I’ve created with Apple News app, specifically the recipes I have saved.

Anyone aware of a way to export saved articles and recipes to links that don’t require the news app (news +) to access?

Hi everyone,

As the title suggests, I'd like to ask for some advice on a good open-source read-it-later service. I'd mainly use it from a browser, but it would also be great for Apple devices.

Thanks so much to anyone who can help.

Posting this since I am a bookwyrm fanboy but also also liked the thoughts on dev pace, "corp spirit", stale bots and the SPA thing.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/24793731

cross-posted from: https://piefed.europe.pub/c/europe/p/170040/folks-tell-the-european-commission-why-open-source-is-so-important

The commission is asking for your feedback on open source. Help them to understand the importance!

Hello my name is Daniel Hanrahan. Do you think my games should have optional calls to assembly functions for certain CPUs and GPUs in order to reach maximum possible performance and use parts/functions of the CPUs and GPUs that are not standard, but it's use for them would for tasks that is not perfect for the standard parts of CPUs and GPUs if possible, for example: instead of using the standard parts/functions of the z80 for the randomization you use the refresh register instead. Let me be clear my games have good performance.

Link to my games: https://daniel-hanrahan-tools-and-games.github.io/

Hi, I want a nice easy-to-use graphical program which can show image thumbnails atleast, and provide an easy way to encrypt images, and ideally other files too. I heard of a few programs but some dont show images and some look a bit dated ui wise. Seeing image thumbnails is pretty much a requirement as it would be alot of swapping back and forth otherwise.

I am using KDE (and nixos), I dont think that matters much for what I want.

Hi! I'm using an android-based OS on my phone (no gplay service though), and looking for a foss (and privacy-friendly) app to share my screen on TV through mi box. Is there such an app out there ? Cheers,

Manual tab unloading with improved unloaded tab previews, macOS passkeys, Windows redist bundling, and assorted import/UI fixes.

I'm looking for a hopefully foss app for dictation. Or even on that just records and transcribes. I'd like it to be Foss but if there is no option I'm open to other suggestions. It's needed for a chronic illness causing memory issues. Need to start taking verbal notes whenever possible.

I would love to replace the official Google messaging app I can't find an app that does RCS messaging. I need to be able to text between someone with an iPhone if that matters. Any suggestions?

This post is a bit old (mid December) but it hasnt been mentioned anywhere on lemmy yet afaict. I was just glad to see another update from the team and to hear that Android 16 is coming to CalyxOS once it starts getting releases again.

Haraltd is a Bluetooth daemon that provides a JSON-based RPC over the native OS's Bluetooth stack. It currently only supports Bluetooth Classic, and runs on Windows and MacOS. Installation instructions are in the README.

It was created to reduce the pain points of dealing with the various Bluetooth stacks present in different operating systems, and to present a simpler API to handle Bluetooth (classic) based operations. It is intended for Bluetooth managers and possibly can be used for scripting purposes. See bluetuith for an application that interacts with Haraltd.

The RPC specification is published here.

A table of the daemon's features is posted here, but to summarise:

• Adapter/device management

• Automatic/manual profile-based connection

• Pairing with authentication

• OBEX profiles (currently only Object Push, but more OBEX profiles will be added later)

• Notifications for various Bluetooth events

• JSON-based RPC over a Unix socket

This was tested only with a sum total of 3 devices (2 Android phones and 1 Bluetooth earphones), so any feedback is appreciated, especially from users who can test with other kinds of Bluetooth classic devices.

Note: No AI was used to manage the codebase or generate code.

Relevant links and information:

Deadline: 3/Feb/26

The European Commission has opened a "call for evidence" to help shape its European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. The commission is looking to reduce its dependence on software from non-EU countries:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=intcom%3AAres%282026%2969111

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16213-European-Open-Digital-Ecosystems_en

This call for evidence aims to gather feedback from different interested stakeholders, to enrich the strategy with various perspectives.

More specifically, stakeholders are invited to reply to the following questions:

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the EU open-source sector? What are the main barriers that hamper (i) adoption and maintenance of high-quality and secure open source; and (ii) sustainable contributions to open‑source communities?

2. What is the added value of open source for the public and private sectors? Please provide concrete examples, including the factors (such as cost, risk, lock-in, security, innovation, among others) that are most important to assess the added value.

3. What concrete measures and actions may be taken at EU level to support the development and growth of the EU open-source sector and contribute to the EU’s technological sovereignty and cybersecurity agenda?

4. What technology areas should be prioritised and why?

5. In what sectors could an increased use of open source lead to increased competitiveness and cyber resilience?

Not Calibre it doesn't have page number, Scroll bar. Preferably I like something that can open it in browser.

I need a PDF viewer which UI can be accessed via localhost so I can open it in Firefox.

I need a more powerful PDF viewer with easier jumping to sections, comments, and highlighting.

TL;DR: Mozilla has a new CEO and a new mission: transform Firefox into an AI browser. That has run into some snags, as Firefox users don’t seem that interested in AI. Mozilla is forging ahead, utilizing deceptive patterns (previously known as dark patterns) to nag and annoy people into enabling AI features. You can see this in the introduction of Link Previews, an extremely invasive anti-feature that exists solely to push AI into your experience.